Research Paper
‘Nice people doing shady things’: Drugs and the morality of exchange in the darknet cryptomarkets

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2018.05.008Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

An ethnographic analysis of drug-centred cryptomarket community and exchange, this article explores the embedded values around drug distribution and consumption within this setting. Drawing on our interviews with cryptomarket users, we analyze the ways in which users claim the cryptomarket as a space of morality, empathy, trust, reciprocity, knowledge transfer, harm reduction and self-limitation. The anthropological concept of the morality of exchange is central to our theoretical approach.

Methods

Between December 2014 and July 2017, nine interviews were undertaken with users of drug cryptomarkets. These were conducted in person, using Skype video calling, and using the encrypted ‘self-erasing’ chat app Wickr. The researchers also used overt non-participant observation (NPO) within the cryptomarket forum. This two-pronged approach – interviews and spending time within the community via NPO – enabled a thick description style of ethnographic analysis.

Results

Our research reveals online drug markets less as perfect markets (working to rules of supply and demand) and more as constructive communities of interest that perform and negotiate drug use and supply. We found that participation within these interest communities had practical impact such as changing the type of drug that users consume and the ways in which they participate in street drug supply. Significantly, these values and actions mediate the interface between online action and ‘meatspace’ (the offline world) and reinforce that the motivations and processes of internet activity are just as ‘real’ as offline action.

Conclusion

We redefine the illicit drug focused cryptomarket as a place of exchange, mediation and reciprocity. Real-time knowledge transfer with the aim of harm reduction is one example of the impact of cryptomarket interaction. We caution that this is not a space of kinship and affinity: it is not without its scams, hackers and threats. It is, however, much more than a ‘drug marketplace’ and to understand how users themselves conceptualise this space is fruitful for any understanding of cryptomarkets. Cryptomarket exchange is a form of social action that is not restricted to its economic value for participants.

Section snippets

r/darknetnoobs with FAQs1: why a morality of the illicit?

Cryptomarkets are online sites for the exchange of illicit goods and services that make use of the Tor darknet and its qualities of anonymity and hidden hosting (Martin, 2014: Barratt, Allen, & Lenton, 2014). Cryptomarkets are themselves a hybrid of several technical systems. As well as being hosted within the darknet, payments are made using peer to peer cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin and Monero. Drugs are delivered through public postal services and private couriers. To users the

Markets: meaningful formulations and cultural relations

An understanding of ‘cultural economics’ is helpful here. Material action is formed through practices other than economic – such as the religious or societal – and cannot be separated from them. Further, there is no ‘true’ model of economy or market or marketplace that cryptomarkets aspire to or fail to reach. In fact, economy, market and exchange exist as multiple meaningful formulations in their specific – and changing – cultural contexts (Gudeman, 2001). Parry and Bloch argue that we must

Methods

We had to understand the multiple positions people occupy in relation to their cryptomarket activity and how they position and account for their activities by using methods that actively engage with them. To do that we needed to conduct in depth qualitative interviews focused on themes that were co-constructed with respondents. We conducted nine interviews with cryptomarket users, with two follow ups and some ethnographic observation of their activity while they used the cryptomarkets.

Meet the players

First Elias, he’s a student. He ended up here in the cryptomarkets due to an interest in bitcoin and Tor and hoped to gain knowledge. His drug use previously hinged on friend networks and his experience of the crypto market changed the type of drug he took.

Next we have Rakesh, initially he thought the cryptomarket was too good to be true. Now, he thinks it gets a ‘bad rep’ and finds it great for security and drug quality.

Marco, he’s a student. He admits he hasn’t been as ‘safe’ on the darknet

Irreducibility of the marketplace

Cryptomarkets are communities composed of multiple layers. One way of conceptualising this would have been according to the degree that users are ‘inside’ the cryptomarkets. Users certainly occupied different positions in it. However we wanted to understand the dynamic driving them to embed themselves in different ways. We found it according to the kind of reciprocity that they enact within the cryptomarkets or experience while using them. For example, one can be both ‘outside the community’

When sharing is not a form of exchange: reciprocity, risk and existing relations

In its most basic terms, reciprocity can be either immediate exchange (direct barter) or delayed exchange (where it is eventually expected of the giver, such as a birthday gift). Drug transactions on the cryptomarkets are illuminating because they oftentimes involve both of these reciprocal processes in one single transaction. Immediate exchange occurs as the vendor and buyer swap substances for payment in bitcoin or Monero. Delayed exchange comes into play in various ways. For one of our

‘Scary money’: the middleman, his sense of self and the threshold

Cryptomarkets have the potential to change buying and taking habits of the illicit drug industry. More than this, they can change the perception and potential of selfhood, as mentioned for Elias. Elias ventured online to avoid the middleman of the street deal. As his knowledge and experience grew, he found himself in the role he once actively avoided. He had a connection with the street dealers to whom he had felt himself morally indebted for ceasing to be a customer. Their connection

Making and breaking trust

The infrastructure of most cryptomarkets have in-built verification and validation methods to encourage trustworthiness of the sites. Others rely on community validation over time. Within this process, we encounter a level of trust. Vendors all go through an escrow process except for the most trustworthy of vendors. How does such a circular process work?

[That] is where Grams2 comes in. f you search that you have a whole

Crypto-community: ‘They have a vested interest in you not dying’

Often the cryptomarket users’ actions towards each other come from one of two places. First, an assumption that they are doing the same thing at the same time and with the same motivations and experience. Second, in reaction to the negativity from ‘others’ and stereotyping of drug users, they ‘band together’ into a community in which members hold in their minds a mental image of their affinity. This ‘banding together’ can take two forms: a sense of shared interest, experience and motivation –

Discussion

The cryptomarkets are no detached marketplaces. We found that transactional processes on the cryptomarkets can also be transformative: they have turned the anonymous into a caring, supportive place of morality (Maddox et al., 2016). Barratt et. al point out that, ‘It is encouraging that anonymous digital spaces can provide a place of refuge for people who use drugs to access like-minded others.’ (2016b: 56).

Informal social regulation is part of the working of cryptomarkets (Morselli,

Conflicts of interest

No conflicts of interested are recorded for this article.

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the University of Edinburgh School of Social and Political Science.

Acknowledgements

Our heartfelt thanks to Peter Scott Reid for his help with data collection and recruitment. Thanks are also due to Monica Barratt for her support and the two anonymous reviewers for their exceptionally thoughtful and constructive comments.

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